An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Data Breach Incident Response: AI-enabled technology streamlines manual and programmatic extraction of entities, automating the linking of personal information to entities, rapidly reducing the time to meet regulatory demands and meeting notification timelines.
In today’s tech-driven world, artificial intelligence has become a key enabler of business success. But the question remains — how can businesses effectively harness AI to address their unique challenges while staying true to ethical principles? To explore this topic further, we are interviewing Cory Osher, Vice President of Analytics & AI at UnitedLex.
With over 20 years of litigation, regulatory, and technology experience, Cory has spent the last 12 years driving innovation and automation at UnitedLex as VP of Analytics & AI, where he oversees a team responsible for implementing cost effective, AI-enabled, defensible and repeatable workflows across the EDRM.
Prior to joining UnitedLex, he was the Litigation Technology Manager at Goodwin Procter LLP for 9 years where he managed a firm-wide team supporting all aspects of eDiscovery, with a heavy focus on the healthcare and insurance industries.
Cory graduated from The George Washington University School of Business in Washington, D.C. with a BBA and is an accredited Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified eDiscovery Specialist (CEDS). He is a Relativity Master who maintains 12 Relativity certifications and Reveal/Brainspace Genius with 8 certifications.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path in AI?
I started in the legal field as a paralegal in 2000 and was considering law school. However, I ultimately decided against it. Mergers at my firm opened doors to legal technology. I transitioned to a national firm’s litigation support group, which led to electronic discovery. The shift from paper to electronic communication created a new landscape for managing large data volumes, opening career opportunities in legal tech, which is how I ended up as vice president of analytics and AI at UnitedLex.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started working with artificial intelligence?
Supporting a second request from the federal government right at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020 was very interesting. We had to quickly shift to remote work while meeting government deadlines for a corporate merger. Leveraging AI and technology to streamline the review process and meet those goals during such an inflection point was memorable, as we all had to find new ways to work to still hit deadlines to review and produce a vast amount of data within a very short amount of time.
You are a successful leader in the AI space. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Be ready to challenge the status quo in the quickly evolving AI landscape. If it’s not broke, you don’t need to fix it initially, but especially in AI’s ever-changing environment, you always need to be pushing the needle in innovation.
- Continuously learn new things and be open to new technology that can transform how you’re used to doing things.
- Finally, being a good listener, especially when overseeing a large team, helps in hearing different perspectives and different solutions on how to overcome a challenge.
Let’s jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a specific example of how you or your organization used AI to solve a major business challenge? What was the problem, and how did AI help address it?
A corporate legal client faced challenges with the cost and accuracy of data entry from a large multi-district litigation. We used AI to read complaints, extract key information like jurisdiction and parties, and automatically populate their matter management system. This drastically reduced time, improved quality, and lowered overall costs by taking the person’s name, extracting that out, and putting it into the appropriate database field. This type of work is why our clients come to us, to streamline processes and create time and cost savings.
What are some of the common misconceptions you’ve encountered about using AI in business? How do you address those misconceptions?
Some people believe that AI is simply a “magic button” that operates without needing human oversight or workflow customization. They do not understand that it’s a lot more nuanced, in that there needs to be a human in the loop. Others worry their data will be exposed publicly when working with a company like ours, with data going into the expanse of the internet. In reality, the large language models that are being deployed are either happening behind our firewall on premises or happening inside our private cloud network. Client data does not leave our infrastructure and that’s a misconception we’ve worked to correct over the last several years.
In your opinion, what is the most significant way AI can make a positive impact on businesses today?
AI can significantly impact businesses by automating low-value, mundane tasks with high error rates, such as data entry and information extraction. This improves quality, consistency, and reduces turnaround times, allowing employees to focus on higher-value tasks and potentially increasing business margins.
Ok, let’s dive deeper. Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways AI Can Solve Complex Business Problems”? These can be strategies, insights, or tools that companies can use to make the most of AI in addressing their challenges. If possible, please share examples or stories for each.
- Risk Assessment and Mitigation: AI can quickly review contracts to identify at-risk clauses, understanding where those risks are and working with your in-house and outside counsel to mitigate those risks. Or, AI models can drive insights and correlations from data points, indicating the root cause of a liability is ultimately a training issue that can be rectified.
- Predictive Analytics: AI can analyze case data and public records to inform business decisions about pursuing or settling claims. What are the facts of the case? What’s the potential liability? What’s the jurisdiction? Who is the judge? Opposing counsel? AI can use all this information to turn legal claims into business decisions, which is a real game changer.
- IP and Patent Portfolio Management: AI-powered technology enables corporations to better understand their intellectual property portfolio as well as their competitors’ portfolios through Patent and Patent Lapse Analytics.
- Agentic AI and Automation: Agentic AI systems backed by small (expert) language models can semi-autonomously manage repetitive tasks such as customer inquiries, invoice processing, and HR screening, proactively optimizing workflows. By handling these operational duties with adaptability and rules based decision-making, they enable employees to dedicate their time to high-value, strategic initiatives that drive innovation and business growth.
- Data Breach Incident Response: AI-enabled technology streamlines manual and programmatic extraction of entities, automating the linking of personal information to entities, rapidly reducing the time to meet regulatory demands and meeting notification timelines.
How can smaller businesses or startups, with limited budgets, begin to integrate AI into their operations effectively?
Smaller businesses can effectively integrate AI by partnering with third-party service providers like UnitedLex. Companies like ours, known as Alternative Legal Services Providers, offer access to technology and infrastructure, often through subscription models or on a transactional basis, without the need for significant upfront investment. This helps level the playing field with larger companies.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitant to adopt AI because of fear, misconceptions, or lack of understanding?
My advice is to overcome the fear and become educated on AI. If you’re not careful, you could become the next Blockbuster, a company that did not evolve with the technology that was radically transforming its industry. And like Blockbuster, businesses that don’t evolve risk become obsolete. Now is the time to learn about AI and consider partnering with companies that can help navigate its adoption and overcome any hesitations.
In your opinion, how will AI continue to shape the business world over the next 5–10 years? Are there any trends or emerging innovations you’re particularly excited about?
The AI of today is the worst it will ever be. It will only improve from here. I’m excited about emerging innovations such as small language models tailored for specific business problems, AI agents that automate standard workflows, and the potential breakthroughs in quantum computing that could lead to artificial general intelligence. These are going to be models that are more curated to specific use cases instead of being trained based on everything on the Internet. The workforce will need to adapt to these changes. And it will. But we must start laying the groundwork for this now.
How do you think the use of AI to solve business problems influences relationships with customers, employees, and the broader community?
Employees might have some skepticism, wondering if this is actually going to work and if their job is going to become obsolete. One way I look at it, is that folks have access to the same cooking ingredients and potentially even have access to the same recipes, but not everyone’s a Michelin starred chef. Human expertise will still differentiate organizations. But AI will augment the tasks that people are already doing today.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people through AI, what would that be?
The movement I would start would certainly have something to do with utilizing AI to help provide people better access to healthcare. Between the technological breakthroughs AI is already helping to create and the shortage of quality care, especially in low-income areas, AI can offer better access and proactive treatment to mitigate long-term issues across all of our society.
How can our readers further follow you online?
You can reach me on LinkedIn and you can find UnitedLex on our corporate website. I look forward to hearing from you!
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator.
Cory Osher of UnitedLex on How Artificial Intelligence Can Solve Business Problems was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.